October 31 News: Cost Of Superstorm Sandy May Reach $50 Billion

Superstorm Sandy will end up causing about $20 billion in property damages and $10 billion to $30 billion more in lost business, according to IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm. [Associated Press]

Monday’s mammoth storm that caused severe flooding, damage and fatalities to the eastern U.S. will raise pressure on Congress and the next president to address the impacts of climate change as the price tag for extreme weather disasters escalates. [Chicago Tribune]

A few months ago, forecasters were predicting a “near-normal” hurricane season. Now, the East Coast is dealing with one of the most damaging storms to date. [ABC News]

The warnings came, again and again. For nearly a decade, scientists have told city and state officials that New York faces certain peril: rising sea levels, more frequent flooding and extreme weather patterns. [New York Times]

Raw sewage, industrial chemicals and floating debris filled flooded waterways around New York City on Tuesday. Left in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the toxic stew may threaten the health of residents already dealing with more direct damages from the disaster. [Huffington Post]

A new poll released Monday shows Americans rank the presidential candidates’ views on energy policy as more important to their 2012 vote than environmental policy. [The Hill]

Meghan McCain took to Twitter late on Monday night and said, “So are we still going to go with climate change not being real fellow republicans?” The remarks from the daughter of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) came as superstorm Sandy rocked the East Coast. [Huffington Post]

Climate change could lead to crops from the banana family becoming a critical food source for millions of people, a new report says. Researchers from the CGIAR agricultural partnership say the fruit might replace potatoes in some developing countries. [BBC]

The government and a group of leading businesses have today unveiled a major pledge to phase out the use of unsustainable palm oil by 2015 in the UK, in a bid to reduce deforestation and tackle climate change. [Business Green]

South Africa, one of the most coal-dependent countries in the world, has taken another major step toward a clean energy future. The country’s energy minister recently announced approval of $5.4 billion for 28 wind, solar, and geothermal projects that will add 1.4 gigawatts (GW) of new renewables capacity to the grid. [CleanTechnica]

Do insurance dollars and taxpayer dollars from relief agencies have to be paid to those who incurred losses after providing resources to smear climate science with misinformation? To at least some extent they made their own bed did they not?

Shame on CNN, NY Times (and too many others to mention) for once again leaving out the most important factor related to catastrophic Hurricane Sandy: HUMAN INDUCED climate change.
From NY Times article cited above:
“Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is known worldwide for his broad environmental vision.”
Really??
Will he now change his mind about fracking?
Bloomberg in The Washington Post 8/12:
“We can frack safely if we frack sensibly. That may not make for a great bumper sticker. It does make for good environmental and economic policy.”
Will Bloomberg emphasize systematic causation between Hurricane Sandy and AGW?
Bloomberg quote in Huffington Post 10/30/12:
“I don’t know how practical it is to put gates on PATH tubes and subway tunnels,” Bloomberg said in a separate press conference. “What is clear is that the storms we’ve experienced in the last year or so around this country and around the world are much more severe than before. Whether that’s global warming or what, I don’t know, but we’ll have to address those issues.”
OK . . (deep breath) . . . does anybody else see the damage done by statements like this in that they will continue to feed denial regarding the CAUSE of climate change?

A mer $50 billion, hell that is peanuts, we give that much to the fossil industry in tax subsidies every few years or less. (Depending on how you compute subsidies of course.) We don’t even think twice about it. Then let that some industry get away without paying taxes on huge profits to help out in the hard times. Go figure. It must be peanuts!

The project would define prehistoric carbonaceous substances as forms of matter, not “forms of energy.” Their ignition and resultant transformation to carbonic acid gas (CO2), and subsequent carbonic acid (H2CO3), via oxidation would eventually become illegal, since the very concept of “fossil fuel” is a deadly fraud, and is ultimately immoral.

Then we would consider 350 (ppm) and how to proceed in the opposite direction (climate collapse) from that in which we are headed.